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Let me select where to put the command centre when building a new base.


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In the original X-Com, base building actually had some meaning, as you had to defend those bases, and the enemy would always approach through the hangars and the lift (which is now replaced with the command center). Hence, the trick was to build bases where the lift and hangars are on one side of the base, through one easily defended passage (like a radar station), and disconnected from everything else so as to be more easily defensible.

I'd like to revive that.

As it stands, I just start by building a barracks directly above my CC (because it gets me up to the two tiles from the top range where I can build hangars in just 5 more days) and then a radar and storehouse directly below it. Placement doesn't seem to matter so much except for whether I can cram in another workshop or not.

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Who would be dumb enough to put it in the corner? That just means they have fewer places to expand from. And there should be a chance for the alien's troop pod to appear next to it, because there is no reason for it not to. If anything, everyone would put it dead in the center. That way you could build the most off of it at once, with 8 points of contact. As it stands it's just needlessly placed.

Wraith Magus is right, although it seemed that base invasions in oldCom were always limited to the hangars, since aliens never got further in unless you were really unprepared, like having your transport away. I wish there was a way to make our bases less vulnerable. Perhaps we could lock the doors and force aliens along certain paths unless they blow the doors open? With their super weapons it's certainly possible.

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In the original X-Com, players usually put the hangars and the lift in one section of the base, joined to the rest of the base by a "bridge" consisting of a single tile structure. That made a chokepoint that all the aliens had to move through and made base defence missions extremely easy. Allowing players to think about how to lay out their bases invariably means there is one "correct", exploitative way to do things and I don't really think that's actually much of a choice.

We can probably make the CC placeable manually though.

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Why not? You already have a randomised assault mechanism which makes single premade chokepoint useless.

Or the player will need to carefully plan the base with several chokepoints, sacrificing vital room space for potential defendability and oh wait just like the people do in real life.

I think it's viable choice and good idea in general.

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Allowing players to think about how to lay out their bases invariably means there is one "correct", exploitative way to do things and I don't really think that's actually much of a choice.

Well, to state that another way, that is to say that giving the player any choice means that it will always be a "calculation", not a "choice", and that you therefore shouldn't bother giving the player any choice in the matter.

Honestly, that sounds a little defeatist to me.

Why should we have tactical ground combat, if there is going to be one decision that is going to be better than others, and lead to better outcomes? Oh, right, that's the whole point of the game.

Now, I know the game's constrained constrained into being "like the original X-Com," so we aren't going to see something too spectacularly intricate in base layouts, (it's just not the core focus of the game,) but as someone who positively loves games like Dwarf Fortress, Minecraft, Terraria, and other base-building games, it rather rubs me the wrong way to see blanket statements that base-building strategies can't be made fun at all.

Even if restricting the aliens to only using a lift and hangars might make the base defense "too predictable", and you make players have to defend against multiple angles, regardless, you could still try to find ways where base layouts matter.

Pie-in-the-sky ideal, you could break the game down into a look-at-your-base mode if you pressed some button, and have some option to manually place (and save) defensible positions in the various labs or whatever. Maybe run some "drills" where you can pre-place units or even those stationary defenses (machine gun turrets) people have been asking for.

Alternately, you might come up with a finer-scale grid so that more of the base is customizable. (That is, make the grid have more tiles, but make the existing rooms take up more tiles, as well.) That way, you might be able to build smaller "rooms" that can be used for just internal base defense, like armored walls that spring up out of the floor or retract when you throw a switch.

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Allowing players to think about how to lay out their bases invariably means there is one "correct", exploitative way to do things and I don't really think that's actually much of a choice.

We can probably make the CC placeable manually though.

And with the problem identified, why not think about fixing it? Creating a choice?

Yes, in the OG there was an advantage to putting the CC in a "safe" location and there was no disadvantage to that.

It was only dumb not to do it. That's not a choice so it's not a gameplay element.

If adjacency to "unsafe" buildings gets you a noticeable bonus, there is a choice.

For instance, put the CC next to a hangar and you can get things like

  • Quicker refueling

  • Chance of getting soldier bonus XP on missions

  • Increased fuel capacity

You need a carrot.

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Agree the Command Centre should be placeable. Yes, this leads to "better" placements, but well, that's kinda the whole idea.

And with the problem identified, why not think about fixing it? Creating a choice?

Yes, in the OG there was an advantage to putting the CC in a "safe" location and there was no disadvantage to that.

It was only dumb not to do it. That's not a choice so it's not a gameplay element.

Well, yes, there are things you figure out quickly. Doesn't mean they shouldn't be in the game.
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Is it possible we're overthikning it?

So what if there is a correct choice. There is often a correct and obvious choice.

Soldier caught in the open? Hide him with a smoke grenade when he retreats.

Enemy heavy ships? Bring out the interceptors.

There is pretty much always a correct response.

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Is it possible we're overthikning it?

So what if there is a correct choice. There is often a correct and obvious choice.

Soldier caught in the open? Hide him with a smoke grenade when he retreats.

Enemy heavy ships? Bring out the interceptors.

There is pretty much always a correct response.

True, but the game does get boring if the answer to every problem is always the same.

A good strategy game will always present you with challenges that are sufficiently different to force you to constantly up your game. (The reason games like Chess or Go are still paragons of the strategic game genre centuries after their invention is that they are virtually impossible to master.)

It generally comes down to making the actual volume of possible iterations of moves so fantastically high, and the long-term consequences of any given choice so difficult to properly foresee, that any specific choice seems virtually indistinguishable from other, similar choices, making the "right" choice difficult to ascertain most of the time. Chess and Go do this by making it basically impossible to complete any action of note in less than half a dozen moves, during which time the opponent has plenty of time to react. More open-ended games like Minecraft or Dwarf Fortress, however, tend to do this with creating such a flood of possible emergent gameplay opportunities that it's largely a matter of which one you can wrap your head around.

All of which is a little too complex and abstract way of saying what I was saying before:

Just make the base-building portion of the game more granular. If players can manually place internal base defenses, and have a more fine-grained opportunity to place their base components, along with some understanding of the "rules" by which alien invasions happen, (not that every alien has to follow the same rules,) you can create a far more fun base defense mission, since it's basically an opportunity for the player to build their own little "mouse trap" to catch the aliens within. (Provided, of course, they knew what sort of threat to expect, and built defenses to match...)

To further what Gazz said, the X-Com 2012 game had exactly that kind of "adjacency bonus" setup to make their base-building relevant. While better than nothing, however, I think that's sort of a hack, a gimmick just to make base-building relevant in an isolated system. I much prefer seeing a system that is integrated with the rest of gameplay, because that creates far more emergent gameplay opportunities, which, in turn, create far greater options for gameplay depth without overburdening the player with complexity.

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I have yet to get a base assault in xenonauts but in original xcom, I would build my base defensively, even if it meant sacrificing some space. Base battles for me were always intense but I never cheaped out like some of the examples I've read in here.

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And with the problem identified, why not think about fixing it? Creating a choice?

Yes, in the OG there was an advantage to putting the CC in a "safe" location and there was no disadvantage to that.

It was only dumb not to do it. That's not a choice so it's not a gameplay element.

If adjacency to "unsafe" buildings gets you a noticeable bonus, there is a choice.

For instance, put the CC next to a hangar and you can get things like

  • Quicker refueling

  • Chance of getting soldier bonus XP on missions

  • Increased fuel capacity

You need a carrot.

I like this idea as you can have a better defense able base with no bonuses or have bonuses but more open base.

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